As is known, for safety reasons, the door of numerous types of electric household appliances, such as washing-machines, dishwashers, and pyrolytic ovens, must be locked in the closed position when the appliance is operating, to prevent the user from inadvertently opening the door. Pyrolytic ovens, in particular, in addition to normal cooking cycles, also perform a self-cleaning cycle, in which the oven temperature is much higher than normal (and therefore potentially dangerous to the user) to remove, by pyrolysis, dirt (e.g. grease) particles from the walls of the oven. At least during the self-cleaning cycle, therefore, the oven door must be locked absolutely reliably.
Since known door blocking devices, such as those used on washing-machines and dishwashers, are unsuitable for ovens, particularly for the extremely high temperatures of pyrolytic ovens, special pyrolytic oven door blocking devices have been devised, which are normally operated by servomotors and therefore extremely expensive and, on the whole, bulky and complex in design.